Across U.S., Outrage at Response (NYT)

[IChing]

By TODD S. PURDUM
Published: September 3, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - There was anger: David Vitter, Louisiana's freshman Republican senator, gave the federal government an F on Friday for its handling of the whirlwind after the storm. And Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland and the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, declared, "We cannot allow it to be said that the difference between those who lived and those who died" amounted to "nothing more than poverty, age or skin color."




There was shock at the slow response: Joseph P. Riley Jr., the 29-year Democratic mayor of Charleston, S.C., and a veteran of Hurricane Hugo's wrath, said: "I knew in Charleston, looking at the Weather Channel, that Gulfport was going to be destroyed. I'm the mayor of Charleston, but I knew that!"

But perhaps most of all there was shame, a deep collective national disbelief that the world's sole remaining superpower could not - or at least had not - responded faster and more forcefully to a disaster that had been among its own government's worst-case possibilities for years.

"It really makes us look very much like Bangladesh or Baghdad," said David Herbert Donald, the retired Harvard historian of the Civil War and a native Mississippian, who said that Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's destructive march from Atlanta to the sea paled by comparison. "I'm 84 years old. I've been around a long time, but I've never seen anything like this.">>>>snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/national/nationalspecial/03voices.html?ei=5088&en=eaa3f9cb6afe803b&ex=1283400000&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1125727306-WNwNvZZwuUTJI1ykYF6LxQ

[Erika]

1. Poverty, age, and skin color

describes those abandoned in NO.

[MissMarple]

2. If this week was an example of our emergency response preparedness,

we are up the proverbial creek. The rest of the world understands that quite clearly, now.

I am so embarrassed for our country.

[truthisfreedom]

3. bush has destroyed the once-great reputation of the US. this is the end of

the rethug rule as they know it. it's going to crumble and crack and the media will be on fire with each new revelation in all of the smoldering controversies surrounding the administraion.

[IChing]

4. I hope your'e all right

I think that pain, sometimes can raise your consciousness.
But shit, it's still painful. Maybe the light of truth will awaken the sleepers.

The shame and sham doesn't even touch Iraq, which the American Public does not get to see it's true horrors, displayed like what was shown on the TV this week.

[Maine-ah]

20. I'd say it also gives evidence to any others that would plan

any form of attack on the US that we most likely couldn't handle it.

[lvx35]

5. DU first, MSM two days later, Bush three days after that.

Its really outrageous...I remember seeing the mayors report here on DU as it was all happening, and it was obviously a catastrophe. But the media was reporting like 60 dead for the next two days, then they figured out. Then worst of all, its like Bush got the news way after that. What the hell happened? People call a 9-11 an intelligence failure, but what do you call failing to notice a national disaster for like 4-5 days after the fact?

[lutefisk]

6. As Al Franken says: Bush and his cronies are children.

They are vicious, petty, ignorant, powerful, greedy, bullying, dishonest, manipulative, and now, murderous, children.

[LunaSea]

7. nominated

[IChing]

9. Damn, I wish it could be tagged like that - great photoshop -n/t

[krkaufman]

10. Wonderful image.

I'll be forwarding that on to a number of people.

[LunaSea]

15. pm me for a larger one...

[Andrushka]

13. That image ROCKS!

eom

[Freedomfried]

14. How did you p-shop the flag upside down?

Thats pretty damn good work.

[LunaSea]

16. ancient chinese secret....

its not hard at all.....

[BillZBubb]

19. Could you slap a title on that picture?

Something like America's Nero, or American Nero, or Bush Twiddle's While NO Drowns.

[Olney Blue]

25. Or "American Idle"

[FlaGranny]

27. American NERO -

I like that very much because Nero looks enough like Hero to make people look to see if they've read it right. A real attention getter.

[Sugarbleus]

29. NERO....'fiddled while his city burned"

I used that analogy for Bush way last year... If it ever fit, it fits now.


While I'm still angry over what we just witnessed, I'm starting to feel relief that SOMETHING FINALLY got done. There's a loooooooong way to go though. There are stuck/stranded people in outside parishes and all over NO city yet.. Plus, the rescued people will need help for years to come.

:hi: Granny Sugarbleus

[Trevelyan]

28. kick These two photoshops are GREAT! I will use them in my flyers that I

leave on benches outside of stores and in grocery carts. I thought I downloaded the one similar to the guitar (which is great, but the fantastic name Fiddling While Rome Burns or for the other one LET THEM EAT CAKE, LIKE ME) It is of bush licking his fingers with the cake in front of him with the flooded destruction of New Orleans behind him. Wanted to use that for a flyer today, found the one with bush eating cake with McCain while New Orleans drowned or died of thirst when it should have been so easy to air drop water and food.

I would like to find the original of bush's refusal of Canada's relief workers, he had at first agreed then when they were loaded and ready to take off, he decided to refuse Canada to come in America's airspace and read earlier today that in addition to telling the UN that he would get back to them on their offer of help while thousands died, that bush has refused other countries that were on stand-by to help access to American harbors or airspace. Would like to read more about the other countries, misplaced my Candadian article but it does have a link to the Canadian newspapers who reported it.

I have been leaving flyers outside of Giant Foods and in grocery carts and restrooms for months, the past two times left in aisles and got a derogatory comment from the manager last time, this time, a clerk came out, handed me one of the flyers and said that Giant Foods was private property and I could not leave offending material. The people who have come up to me for months on my IMPEACH BUSH.com armbands, now on both arms, have said they wanted me to know they REALLY agreed with me and looked like they were simmering at bush. I live in a blue state.

I read on The Dood Abides and another site that it is legal to leave leaflets in addition to passing them out in stores and malls. That only if your left them in a mailbox or near it, then you had to pay $.32 in a stamp. Does anyone know the law on leaving leaflets in or outside of stores on benches, grocery carts, restrooms, etc.?

[Sugarbleus]

30. LOL Luna...

I really need to Step away from the internet and go practice using photoshop..

......NERO Fiddled..

[wli]

8. 100K+ probably dead; the government will not survive

I expect either we'll descend into outright dictatorship or the rethugs will be so disgraced it will be the end of the party (if they aren't dissolved outright by legal rulings).

[anitar1]

11. I'm sure they don't think so. They have plans to

carry out. Total control of this country. Not far from it now.

[calimary]

12. That second one would be more than alright by me.

We've done it their way. Bullied and intimidated and backstabbed in the process. And look what it got us. Look where we stand now. The word "disgrace" doesn't even begin to describe it.

I'd LOVE to see the republi-CONS deep-sixed. I'd LOVE to see that bunch of thugs so reviled that it's the end for them. Funny isn't it - they lust after one-party rule. Well, who knows - this might get them there: ousted, completely discredited, and disassembled - replaced by the only party left standing: the Democrats they tried so hard to destroy. That would be poetic justice, not to mention salvation for the rest of this battered country. Wouldn't that take the cake? It certainly would be well-deserved. RICHLY deserved. Imagine bushie boy presiding NOT over the dictatorship he lusted after but the utter destruction of his own political party.

[Gays_R_Family]

17. here's hoping ...

It would indeed ...

the only problem with that scenario being that the Democrats sure haven't done anything to earn it.

But here's hoping this shakes 'em out of their coma.

[grasswire]

18. I'm sick of Dems being reviled, too.

Stop it. It's a Republican mantra. Dems will do just fine.

[ailsagirl]

21. Is this it? Is this the straw that will finally break the camel's back?

Or will those bastards continue on their merry path of destruction??

If THIS doesn't get the SOBs out of office, NOTHING WILL!!

What the hell does it TAKE?? Are people finally waking UP?????

:grr: :mad: :grr:

:rant:

[kostya]

31. I ain't holding my breath...

I'm sorry, but I fear there is just worse to come from these criminals in charge of all three branches of government. May you live in interesting times as the old Chinese proverb says... Sadly, K

[Miss Chybil]

22. It's all about cronyism, here and in the rest of the world, where there

is desperation with the government, you will find the government full of cronies.

[JoFerret]

23. Bush appointed incompetent inexperienced cronies

cronies to lead FEMA.
(Akin to Rumsfeld in the Pentagon and etc.)

[AnnieBW]

24. It's Darfur, Not Baghdad

Forget Baghdad. It's way beyond Baghdad. It's the equivalent of Darfur. Or maybe Mogadishu in 1993.

[killbotfactory]

26. Bush has committed fuck-up after fuck-up

and all republicans have left are excuses for the inexcusable.

blaming the local gov't. saying it's not the feds job to prepare for disasters like this... etc. It's pathetic in the extreme.